Turner, Brooks are marquee entertainmers at fair

Saturday

Feb 9, 2013 at 7:00 AM

Josh Turner will headline the 2013 St. Joseph County Grange Fair.

By Jef RietsmaJournal Correspondent

A popular, baritone-voiced country-western act, along with half of the most successful duo in country music over the past two decades, will take the main stage next fall at the St. Joseph County Grange Fair in Centreville.

Josh Turner will headline the 2013 fair with an evening performance Sept. 21.

Kix Brooks, who teamed with Ronnie Dunn to form Brooks and Dunn and reel off a string of hits starting in the early 1990s, will serve as opening act.

Bill Johnson, manager of the St. Joseph County Grange Fair, announced the lineup Friday.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Thursday.

Turner, a 35-year-old South Carolina native, has a résumé featuring four No. 1 hits: "Your Man," "Would You Go With Me," "Why Don't We Just Dance" and "All Over Me."

See Josh Turner discography, video clips.

Turner's breakthrough hit was the 2003 track, "Long, Black Train."

Celebrating one of his fastest-rising singles to-date, "Time Is Love," Turner released his fifth studio album, "Punching Bag," in summer 2012. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard country albums chart.

In a prior interview, Johnson discussed the search process for the fair's marquee entertainment. He said fair board works with an entertainment broker who scouts potential entertainment based on budget, the interest a rural area such as St. Joseph County may have in a specific artist and whether an act is in the general area around the third week of September.

"If an act we might be interested in is within a certain distance during the week of the fair, that's always a factor we take into consideration," Johnson said.

Turner and Brooks will have a tough act to follow after last year's fair. Alan Jackson drew more than 5,000 to his September 2012 show, setting a fair attendance record.

Further details about the 2013 entertainment may be obtained by phoning the fair office, at